Why Does the United States Have the

Best Research Universities? Incentives, Resources, and Virtuous Circles

W. Bentley MacLeod and Miguel Urquiola

Abstract

Around 1875, the US had none of the worldrsquo;s leading research universities; today, it accounts for the majority of the top-ranked. Many observers cite events surrounding World War II as the source of this reversal. We present evidence that US research universities had surpassed most countriesrsquo; decades before World War II. An explanation of their dominance must therefore begin earlier. The one we offer highlights reforms that began after the Civil War and enhanced the incentives and resources the system directs at research. Our story is not one of success by design, but rather of competition leading American colleges to begin to care about research. We draw on agency theory to argue that this led to increasing academic specialization, and in turn, to more precise measures of professorsrsquo; research output. Combined with sorting dynamics that concentrated talent and resources at some schools—and the emergence of tenure—this enhanced research performance.

Introduction

The explanation we offer highlights reforms that began after the US Civil War and enhanced the incentives and resources the American university system directs at research.^[1] Understanding these reforms benefits from two observations. First, the United States takes a relatively free market approach to higher education; for instance, it allows easy entry by schools seeking to satisfy customer demand. Second, universities do not supply their customers with a single “product”; they provide a complex set of services, among which is sorting. When a school produces sorting, it implicitly “sells” peer groups—a chance to be exposed to and associated with certain types of people. For example, some schools cater to students who are smart, wealthy, or artistic.

We begin our review of the history of US university research by noting that from colonial times and into the 1800s, American households demanded denominational sorting. For example, Presbyterians wished to attend college with Presbyterians, Episcopalians with Episcopalians, and so on. Further, most students preferred colleges close to home. Together, these factors produced massive entry; while the United States had nine colleges in 1776, about 900 more opened before the Civil War.

Mass entry meant that early US colleges tended to be small and underfunded. They offered a basic, narrow, and rigid curriculum delivered by unspecialized and often poorly paid professors. Colleges routinely hired faculty using criteria other than expertise and provided them with few incentives or resources to do research. It is not surprising that, on average, colleges did not excel in this dimension.

We then discuss how reforms allowed the system to begin providing incentives and resources. First, we sketch an agency model that asks how universities can incentivize professors to do research. It highlights that even if an institution is committed to research, producing this output benefits from reasonably precise research performance measures. Precision is enhanced by academic specialization—in this case, by organizing professors into disciplines.

We then describe how American colleges and universities gained an interest in research and increased specialization. To preview, during the last few decades of the 1800s, US colleges let a gap emerge between the skills they taught and those their customers demanded. With industrialization, interest grew around areas that the college curricula essentially ignored, like engineering and business. In the 1870s and 1880s, new universities like Cornell and Johns Hopkins showed that one could attract students by offering specialized and advanced instruction in a range of areas, rather than by supplying denominational sorting. Incumbents like Harvard and Columbia responded forcefully, forming specialized arts and sciences departments and creating professional schools.

Free entry allowed other schools to join the fray. This process was helped by private donations, which propelled universities like Chicago and Stanford. It was also aided by public resources, which were crucial for entrants like the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

All these schools began to seek professors who were specialists and therefore, researchers at the frontier of a field. The academic system responded by providing tools to measure research output, like specialized journals. Schools thus gained the ability to identify, bid for, and begin to recruit successful researchers.

These years also saw some American universities acquire tremendous amounts of resources. In the early 1900s, the schools implementing reforms sought and achieved rapid enrollment growth. However, they found that this threatened the match between the sorting they provided and that which key students demanded. In particular, enrollment growth brought in lower-income students and Jewish students, which—in a period of rising anti-Semitism—alienated the Protestant elites the colleges had traditionally served. By the early 1920s, Columbia implemented selective admissions, with several schools following soon after. Selectivity set in motion another sorting process, concentrating high ability/income students—and eventually high tuitions and donations—at such schools. This bolstered their ability to recruit desirable professors.

In addition, the early decades of the 1900s saw the emergence of “lumpy” rewards for research, the most salient being tenure. Agency theory implies that an up-or-out incentive system can promote performance, particularly if professors compete against individuals of

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为什么美国有最好的研究型大学？激励、资源和良性循环

W. Bentley MacLeod and Miguel Urquiola

摘要

1875年左右,美国没有一所世界一流的研究型大学,今天,它占了世界顶尖大学的大多数。许多观察家援引围绕第二次世界大战的事件作为这种逆转的根源。我们提供的证据表明,美国研究型大学已经超过了二战前大多数国家的几十年。因此,对它们支配地位的解释必须更早地开始。我们提供的改革重点是内战后开始的改革,并加强了该系统在研究方面的激励和资源。我们的故事不是以设计取得成功,而是以竞争引领美国高校开始关心研究。我们借鉴代理理论,认为这导致了学术专门化程度的提高,反过来又导致了更精确地衡量教授的科研产出。再加上一些学校集中人才和资源的排序动态——以及任期制的出现 ——这种增强了研究绩效。

我们提供的解释突出了美国内战后开始的改革，并增强了美国大学系统在研究方面的激励和资源。理解这些改革有两个好处。首先，美国对高等教育采取相对自由的市场方式;例如，它允许寻求满足客户需求的学校轻松进入。其次，大学不向客户提供单一的“产品”;他们提供了一组复杂的服务，其中包括排序。当一所学校进行排序时，它隐含地“出售”了同龄人群体——一个接触某些类型的人并与之建立联系的机会。例如，一些学校迎合了聪明，富有或艺术的学生。

我们首先回顾了美国大学研究的历史，指出从殖民时代到1800年代，美国家庭要求宗派分类。例如，长老会希望与长老会一起上大学，圣公会与圣公会一起上大学，等等。此外，大多数学生更喜欢离家很近的大学。总之，这些因素产生了巨大的进入;而美国在1776年有九所大学，在内战前又开设了大约900所大学。

大规模入学意味着早期的美国大学往往规模较小且资金不足。他们提供基本，狭窄和僵化的课程，由非专业且通常收入低的教授提供。大学通常使用专业知识以外的标准来雇用教师，并且很少为他们提供进行研究的激励或资源。平均而言，大学在这方面并不出色，这并不奇怪。

然后，我们讨论了改革如何使该系统开始提供激励措施和资源。首先，我们勾勒出一个机构模型，询问大学如何激励教授进行研究。它强调，即使一个机构致力于研究，产生这种产出也受益于合理精确的研究绩效指标。学术专业化提高了精确度——在这种情况下，通过将教授组织成学科。

然后，我们描述了美国学院和大学如何获得对研究的兴趣并增加专业化。预告一下，在1800年代的最后几十年里，美国大学在他们教授的技能与客户要求的技能之间出现了差距。随着工业化，人们对大学课程基本上忽略的领域的兴趣越来越大，比如工程和商业。在1870年代和1880年代，康奈尔大学和约翰霍普金斯大学等新大学表明，人们可以通过在一系列领域提供专业和先进的教学来吸引学生，而不是通过提供宗派分类。像哈佛大学和哥伦比亚大学这样的老牌学校做出了强有力的回应，成立了专门的艺术和科学系，并创建了专业学校。

免费入学允许其他学校加入战斗。这一过程得到了私人捐款的帮助，这些捐款推动了芝加哥和斯坦福大学等大学的发展。它还得到了公共资源的帮助，这对加州大学伯克利分校和麻省理工学院等进入者至关重要。

所有这些学校都开始寻找专家教授，因此也是某个领域前沿的研究人员。学术系统的回应是提供衡量研究成果的工具，如专业期刊。因此，学校获得了识别，竞标和开始招募成功研究人员的能力。

这些年来，一些美国大学也获得了大量的资源。在1900年代早期，实施改革的学校寻求并实现了入学率的快速增长。然而，他们发现这威胁到他们提供的排序与关键学生要求的排序之间的匹配。特别是入学率的增长带来了低收入学生和犹太学生，在反犹太主义抬头的时期，这疏远了大学传统上服务的新教精英。到20世纪20年代初，哥伦比亚大学实施了选择性招生，不久之后有几所学校紧随其后。选择性启动了另一个分类过程，将高能力/高收入的学生集中在这些学校，并最终获得高学费和捐款。这增强了他们招募理想教授的能力。

此外，在1900年代的早期几十年里，出现了“块状”的研究奖励，最突出的是终身教职。机构理论意味着，一个向上或向外的激励系统可以提高绩效，特别是如果教授与具有相似能力的人竞争。与日益精确的研究绩效衡量标准一致，终身教职进一步推动了一个分类过程，导致教授与具有相似能力的同事聚集在各部门。

简而言之，美国顶尖学校开始享受良性循环，为他们提供资源来投资研究，他们可以有效地激励他们;这有助于吸引强大的学生和资金，这可以用于进一步的改革和改进。与此同时，其他学校也在苦苦挣扎并失去了阵地，造成了美国高等教育中明显的校际不平等。

在此期间，这种动态在欧洲，特别是在欧洲大陆，运作得要弱得多。欧洲国家控制着他们的高等教育体系，不允许轻易进入。这阻止了数百所苦苦挣扎的学校的出现，但也减缓了麻省理工学院或斯坦福大学等全球人才的极致磁铁的兴起。总体而言，所有类型的排序在欧洲并不那么广泛。在激励措施方面，欧洲的教授安排——其起源可以追溯到中世纪盛期——在较小程度上使用了像终身教职这样的向上或向外的计划。

代理理论与研究绩效

我们首先勾勒出一个机构理论框架，该框架有助于理解所发生的事情（本节的数学版本在JEP网站上显示为在线附录）。我们的出发点是个人对奖励做出反应的基本理念，以及绩效衡量标准塑造这些奖励的基本理念。正如默顿（Merton，1968）所说，这也适用于学术活动。

假设教授在一所大学工作，努力进行研究和“外部活动”。外部活动可能包括咨询工作和在校友网络或1800年代的宗教团体中保持活跃。我们假设教授们有内在的动机去做研究，所以即使他们没有得到报酬，他们也会在某种程度上参与这项活动。我们还假设，在其他条件相同的情况下，个人和大学更喜欢稳定而不是有风险的收入来源。

特定时期的大学级诺贝尔奖提名

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